Bold and welcome move

Mayor’s plan to sell Miramar Landfill has great potential

The plan has the potential to save many millions of dollars in the long term by relieving taxpayers of the cost of paying landfill employees and maintenance and improvement bills. There’s even the possibility the deal could be structured to provide not just an upfront payment but a future revenue stream. San Diego County’s highly successful 1997 decision to sell Sycamore Landfill and the county’s garbage operation to Allied Waste for about $180 million certainly shows the potential of privatizing waste disposal services.

Once again, however, the question of City Council loyalties will be key to whether progress can be made in whittling away at the city’s estimated $75 million annual structural deficit. The proposal requires council approval as well as “meet-and-confer” negotiations with city labor unions.

Similar requirements have blocked the implementation of Proposition C, a popular 2006 ballot measure allowing for outsourcing of some city services under a “managed competition” process in which private providers bid against employee groups. Democratic council members and union officials say they are just trying to make the process fair and efficient, not preserving union jobs by any means necessary. After nearly four years, however, it is hard to take these claims seriously.

The landfill proposal deserves much better. The mayor has set an Aug. 13 deadline for bids and hopes to make a final recommendation to the City Council by November. Here’s hoping his bold and welcome plan doesn’t face the same protracted stalling as Proposition C.